


Carnaval Noir

by philomel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Carnival, Dark, First Time, M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:32:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philomel/pseuds/philomel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s as strange as Dean’s ever seen.</p><p><span class="small">Sam is 17.</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnaval Noir

He's lost in the midway. Not that he's lost completely — he can see all the painted signs, read the exits by where the light and laughter drop off into darkness. But he lost Sam somewhere in this mess, and that's as good as lost for him too.

Finding Sam should be as easy as looking for the tallest person in the crowd. And he's done that, finding a long, black top hat shooting up above the other heads like a smokestack in the distance. Dean thinks of Abraham Lincoln, almost pulls a smirk from that thought, until the hat turns and the face shadowed beneath it reveals hollowed cheeks and glinting teeth — too many, more like saw teeth than bone — and nothing more. This specter looks like something that needs hunting. Or this man, if that's all he is, looks like someone who needs confining to a tent where he won't provide nightmare fodder for all the kids running around this place. Where he won't provide nightmare fodder for Dean, who's seen enough that he shouldn't have nightmares anymore, but still does.

A large figure wavers in Dean's periphery, and he whips around to find an oversized stuffed monkey hoisted on a man's shoulders. Behind him, a small boy beats on the man's thigh like its a denim-skinned drum, chanting "monkey! monkey!" to the same rhythm. They make a sharp turn toward a stand selling funnel cakes, and Dean can see cymbals made out of felt stitched to the monkey's paws. As the man walks, the monkey's arms bob inward, almost but not quite crashing the cymbals over his head. Fuzzy or not, monkeys with cymbals will always be on Dean's list of all things creepy.

Dean pushes slowly past the food stand, his stomach growling at the fried, sugary smells. He picks a point along the circle of the midway and decides to work his way around it clockwise.

Eyes settling on the tent with the droopy clown at its entrance, he walks toward the tent to its right instead. Sam definitely wouldn't go back there. And getting a closer look at this clown, with its greasepaint so old and dry it's starting to peel off his face in thin flakes, Dean's definitely not going into the skanky Bozo tent either. But he wouldn't tell Sam that, ever. Making Sammy squirm is a point of pride, and he's not about to lose his advantage over him with the stupid clown phobia. In fact, he might have to steer Sam toward that tent once he finds him. As he thinks that, looking back over his shoulder, the clown's red lips smear into a red smile like a gaping wound. Dean curses and walks more quickly through the crowd.

The next tent is blocked by a solid, semicircle of onlookers craning their heads to gape at a striped dais and the two girls twisting around on it. Or girl. Or, Dean's not really sure what to call Siamese twins ("conjoined," he hears Sam correct in his head). The two-headed girl has two sets of arms, but only one set of legs that stretch wide into splits before scissoring shut and open again, sliding over their heads then under again as their arms curl and reach and brace. It's kind of hot. But Dean's definitely not thinking about what those extra hands — or extra mouth—could do.

He's not surprised when he notices that most of the people watching here are men, but he is a bit surprised to not find Sammy among them.

Dean knows the teenage years are hell, more blood flowing to the downstairs brain than the upstairs one, making you do stupid-ass stuff. But the kid's been really horny lately. Like the kind of horny that makes Dean feel almost chaste by comparison. Eleven times in this month alone, Dean has woken up in the middle of the night to hear Sam whacking off in the next bed. And Dean thinks hearing the slap of skin on skin is kind of like hearing someone yawn: once they do it, you gotta do it too.

Dean's had a few sleepless nights.

He stares at the Siamese Twins for a few more moments. Imagines sleepless nights spent with his fists in the sheets not because he can't touch himself but because he doesn't have to. But some things are a little too freaky, even for him. One girl lays her head on the other's shoulder and looks at him, arching her eyebrow. This is starting to become too coincidental. He pushes away and turns to go as the girls link arms and begin to spin around in a dizzying circle.

Clearing his head would be good right now, but he's walking right into the thick whirl of calliope music and the rolling laughter of children riding the carousel, their high-pitched giggles bursting over the drunken gurgle of the organ. Dean thinks of the time they almost lost Sammy at a seaside amusement park, suddenly gone as Dad lead them down the boardwalk on the way back to their motel. Sam was no more than four back then, so small, not like now. Dean remembers spinning around in the crowd, his stomach lurching, ready to empty itself of all the pizza and vinegar-drenched fries he'd just eaten. Then he remembers Dad roaring Sam's name and people jumping back at the sound, and running through them to find Dad plucking Sammy from a black carousel horse, his little hands still grabbing at its mane of painted fire. He remembers Sammy thrown over Dad's shoulder like a living rag doll, legs kicking, crying for his horsey. "My horsey! Dean, my horsey!" he pleaded over Dad's shoulder as Dad walked past, and Dean followed, listening to Sam scream himself to sleep.

All of the horses on this carousel are red and white. Dean watches them as they spin into a candied swirl. They go round counterclockwise. Widdershins, Dean recalls, thinking of witches — what Dad was hunting back then, at that seaside town. It couldn't be witches this time, Dad was sure. Dean moves on.

The fortune teller's caravan is crooked, one wheel sinking into a patch of mud. Her sign sways lightly in a wind that Dean can't feel. _Madame Arcana_ , in faded letters on grayed wood. The gray-green door creaks open, and a wisp of smoke comes out, followed by a teenaged girl with wet eyes — whether from crying or from the burning patchouli, Dean's not sure. Left in the doorway is a woman drowned in folds of red velvet and silk, roped with blue-tarnished gold chains and rings. She flicks the long, pointed nail of her thumb over a deck of cards. The quick clicking sound follows the click of the girl's heels down the caravan steps. The girl looks up at Dean and smiles, cheeks pinkening, her hazel eyes bright. He smiles back faintly; she's too young. Back up in the doorway, the fortune teller coughs. Or laughs — it's hard to tell. Without looking, she pulls a card from the deck and tosses it at his feet. He looks down, hears the door slam shut. Dean picks up the card, turns it over in his hand. The Hanged Man. He lays it face down on the top step of the caravan and walks away.

No children gather at the next attraction, where a puppet show plays for no one. Dean recognizes Punch and Judy, carved roughly out of wood, doing an awkward dance of beatings and barbs on visible strings. It's archaic, even by this old school carnival's standards, and Dean isn't surprised as a mother ushers her wandering son away from the abusive scene. The puppetmaster's head protrudes from the top of the box, bald and liver-spotted. Dean only sees his eyes, one of which is partially filmed over with cataract, but he seems to be grinning as he catches Dean's gaze. A red devil suddenly drops down behind Punch. His pitchfork pokes between Punch's legs, in and out, in and out. Dean's had enough of this creepy-ass play.

The main tent looms large, pinstriped canvas pinned back to reveal an empty arena inside, bleachers flanking a wooden ring on the dirt floor. The barker sits wide-legged on the box in front of the tent, sucking on the stump of a cigarette. His chin is greasy, his mustache greasier. Beside him is a paper plate piled high with chicken bones. He belches. Dean says, "You're excused." He can feel the barker's glare follow him through the thinning crowd.

It's late. Dean doesn't know how late because he forgot his watch. But he still can't find Sam. And he's hungry. And this carnival is starting to get to him. He's not sure if there's really a job here, but there's something _not right_ about the place, about the people. Maybe just your common degenerate _not right_ instead of demonic _not right_. But still, he wants to find Sam and book it back to the motel, come back in the morning when the carnies are sleeping off their hangovers of creepiness, when the crowds aren't around to swallow up his freakishly tall brother as if he was nothing more than a bite-sized spectator. Dean's stomach seems to gnaw at itself. He's not sure if it's just from hunger or something else, but he's too tired to think about it further.

Last night was another night without sleep. Sammy panting and Dean not breathing. Not touching himself. Almost, but not. The heat in the room holding him down, holding him back. He can still remember the smell of his own sweat in the stale air of the room. He can still remember the smell of Sam.

He can almost smell it now, over the oppressive odors of grease and metal and frying dough and dirt.

The next building is black. But so old the black has been weathered to a dull charcoal. It stands out against the starless night sky, though he can tell it's meant to blend in. It looks like a shack on wheels, decrepit and held together with nothing more than a few loose screws and a bit of luck. Its sign is painted right onto the wood of the shack itself, a shiny scrawl of black lacquer fresher and slightly blacker than the black-painted wood. Dean's not a betting man — well, okay, yeah, he is — but he'd be willing to bet that whoever put this building here didn't really want anyone to go in. It looks about as inviting as a nun in a whorehouse. Which is precisely why he's going in there.

The Illustrated Woman brushes past him, but this isn't her building. A tattoo of a snake curls around her bare shoulders. She touches it — herself — with both hands, her arms crossed over her chest. It's not soothing the way she does it, looking at Dean; it's obscene. Her fingers pull away to play at her tattooed collar bones, and it's then that Dean realizes the snake has no tail. It has two heads. She laughs low in the back of her throat, stroking her fingers under their twin heads like they're her real pets.

"Are you curious?" she says in a rough voice that's as low as her laugh. Her eyes are dark but not black. Not that he would be surprised to see them flip over to black, not here. She's at least middle aged, judging by the wrinkles that fold the tattoos back from her face. He doesn't know how to answer her.

She pushes her hand beneath her sleeveless top, and he think she's going to pull out her breast the way she's cupping it, but she pulls out a necklace instead. The pendant is something in amber, green amber if the scant light isn't playing tricks on him. It looks familiar, like an eye. Almost like Sam’s— But it can't be. He narrows his eyes to focus on it, and she drops it back between her breasts, the silver chain slithering against the blue concentric circles tattooed over the swell of each. He wonders vaguely if the circles follow all the way down to her nipples, if her nipples are blunt points of solid blue ink.

"No," she says. She points. "Are you curious?"

Dean turns in the direction she's indicating. The shack. The simple black sign over the simple black door: _Wunderkammer._

He looks back, and she's gone. Completely gone, amongst a crowd that's now so sparse he should be able to see. It's not exactly a surprise, but it still leaves him feeling chill. He thinks, even if there isn't something shady going on here, he might just find a way to shut down the carnival based on principle alone. Let the kiddies get their freaky rocks off some other way. Like at the bottom of a bong or something.

The shack creaks as he steps onto its front stoop. Of _course_ it friggin' creaks. The door creaks too when he opens it. The inside is a contrast of darkness and bright glow that makes his head swim almost as much as the overwhelming scent of thick musk, burning oil and something sharp. Something — he squints his eyes — exactly like formaldehyde. Lining each wall of the room are rows of shelves, flat shelves and shelves with cubby holes. None of them empty. Each one holds a glass vial or mason jar or intricate perfume bottle or wooden box. Each vessel seems to hold something, and most of those somethings are liquid and amber, reflecting the light from the kerosene lamps nailed above the shelves and hanging on iron hooks from the ceiling. In the middle of the room are two more shelves, cluttered with more objects in glass and wood, littered with papers yellowed from age and cracked at the edges. Scrolls sealed with red wax. Books bound in leather and stacked, all coated with dust. Books big enough to make the shelves sag under their weight. Bones, cracked skulls and tusks scattered haphazardly, like a library of open graves.

Dean shuffles closer to the center, and his gaze is caught by a bell jar from which emanates a strange light. At first, he thinks it's a firefly. But he sees no holes, so how could it live? Its glow is amorphous, all hazy shapes shifting and settling until he can almost make one out before it shifts again. A trick of the light he thinks, still staring as he walks away from it, so transfixed he nearly bumps into a candle.

No, not a candle. Maybe. He bends closer, but not too close, to the shriveled hand with each of its curled fingertips set with tiny flames. It doesn't look like wax. It looks dry. Dead, he thinks, and frowns at it.

Farther down the aisle are more jars, each swimming with some organ or body part, some with full fetuses. One looks sort of like a pig, though also like a human baby too. Its cloven feet curl inward, crossing itself. Dean leans in to read the charred paper next to it, trying not to get too close to baby pigboy's pickled remains. He's not Sam or anything, but the text looks like no writing he's ever seen. It's not Latin or Greek or Gaelic. The letters look familiar, but they twist away into new shapes. Not Chinese or Cyrillic or Sanskrit. The ink is red. Dean doesn't spare a thought over whether or not it's written in blood. Nothing here would be more fitting. Nothing here could get any stranger.

He thinks that thought, realizing too late that he shouldn't have jinxed himself. A pair of eyes seems to gaze at him from the back of the topmost shelf. Not in glass, not in formaldehyde. They're almost but not quite green, almost but not really amber. They blink.

Dean hears his name. It makes the hairs stand up all over his neck and arms. But the breath that comes to him from across the shelf is warm, not dry and cold and _other_. It makes his head stop spinning and settle. His shoulders drop, and he didn't even realize they were drawn so close to his ears. Didn't realize his teeth were clenched until his jaw relaxes, opens, loose around the name that sounds more like a sigh.

"Sammy?"

Dean hears his name again, the low almost-rumble of a voice that has come to fill Sam and fit his height, but not only his height—the depth of his eyes. The weight in them that bears down on Dean whenever Dad's around, whenever he's gone, whenever they talk about Mom (not that that ever happens), whenever Dean's looking at him at all. The weight that crashes down on Dean now, anchors him to his spot when he should be running around the corner, making sure his brother's all right. Before kicking his ass for making him search all over this godforsaken carnival to find him. To find him doing what?

"Is that a book?" he says, finally rounding the corner to see more than just a pair of disembodied eyes staring back at him, finally finding his brother after what seems like several weeks worth of mindfuckery instead of just one night. "Sam, you had me chasing all over this cesspool of carnies just to find you holed up in this freakshop, geeking out over a book? You've got to be friggin' kidding me."

Sam's eyes are dark here, too close to catch the light with Dean still tall enough to shadow him even though Sam's already taller. His face pinches tight at Dean's words, but relaxes as soon as Dean is by his side. He looks tired, too tired for seventeen.

"Come on, Sammy, you'll strain your eyes in here." Dean pulls at Sam's upper arm, ready to go.

"But, Dean." Sam doesn't budge, and neither does Dean at those words and the quiet insistence in them. His hand rests between the pages of a yellowing book, veined and so thick that the paper must be skin. Vellum, Dean thinks, following the absent stroke of Sam's finger on one of the raised lines.

Dean feels his pulse race a little. He leans in. "What is this?"

Sam moves his hand, holding the book from the top of its spine so Dean can see. "It's a book of necromancy" he says. "It's ancient. I thought Dad would want it. Or Bobby. But then I found this." He drags his palm down the righthand page like a caress.

Dean has to lean against Sam to get a closer look. It's definitely Latin, but hard to read, only partly because the script is all scrolly and girly. He can make out a few words, "spiritus" and several others, but this is over his head. Sam's the one taking Latin class, and acing it too. Dean's lucky he made it through remedial Spanish, the second time around, with a passing grade. He arches an eyebrow at Sam to say what he doesn't want to have to say out loud.

Sam sighs. "This," he says, hesitating. "This can undo the past."

"What?" Dean scowls.

"Anything. Dean, _anything_ , if you focus on it and do this ritual—and it looks pretty doable—you can change your past. Make something happen that never did. Make other things... not happen."

Dean can't look at him. He can read between the lines, hear beneath what Sam's saying to what he's not, and he doesn't want to hear any more. Can't hear any more. "Sam. Don't."

"If she didn't die, Dean—" Dean sighs; Sam never listens. "If we never had to live this life, know about the things we know about...." Sam's hand is close to Dean's on the book, light on the surface like he can't quite decide whether to lay it down or lift it and lay it somewhere else. Dean can feel the heat of it, the heat coming off Sam's whole body, fused with a barely contained desperation.

He forces himself to look at Sam. Sam doesn't look back. "We can't go back. It's just a fool's wish, Sammy. A dream. And even if we could. If it did work? It's black magic. Something would go wrong."

"It wouldn't if we—"

"It would. It always does."

Sam closes the book, the pages fluttering, dust flying, the leather cover crackling as it comes together. He traces the embossed "e" of the word _Grimoire_ on the front. "We could have a home," he says, barely a whisper. He looks down at Dean, his eyes hard, contradicting the softness in his tone. "Be normal."

Dean should have the decency not to snort, but he's not always as decent as he'd like to be. "What's normal, Sammy? Huh?" He raps the back of his hand against Sam's chest. "A, a white picket fence, a dog in the yard, frozen tv dinners? It isn't normal if you have to work some evil mojo to get it. And it's not normal anyway."

Sam looks down, hair falling into his eyes. But even so, Dean can see the tightness in his face. Sam slides the book all the way onto the shelf, shoving back a pile of feathers and thin bones. "Is this normal, Dean?" he says, pulling his hands from the book, waving one to indicate the room or the carnival—Dean thinks either would work. "Is this?" And Sam reaches around him, pushing his hand beneath Dean's shirt and waistband, making Dean jump and sputter at the fingers against his skin, the fingers slipping around the .45 and sliding it out from the back of Dean's jeans. Dean sways a little, feeling off balance at the loss of it. Sam holds it by the muzzle, holds it up to Dean as if he didn't know what he had stuffed back there. He puts his hand out to take the gun back, his fingers just nudging Sam's out of the way, when the book crashes to the floor beneath them.

Dean bends down toward the book, closing his mouth and swallowing against the cloud of dust it kicked up. He picks it up where it fell open, grimacing a little as he turns it over, the heft of it seeming greater than before. He looks down at the page with the same spell Sam showed him. "Well, that's normal," he says, turning to grin at Sam, finding him below him, reaching for something on the floor.

Three dusty tarot cards lay in Sam's hand where he scooped them up. He pulls one off and places it on the shelf where the book had been, then the other, then the last. Ten of Cups, Ace of Cups, Hanged Man.

It looks like the same set from the fortune teller's. But it must be a common kind, can't be the same.

"Is that supposed to mean something?" Dean asks.

Sam stares at the spread for a moment or two, then turns to Dean. "It means somebody's got an incomplete deck." He takes the book out of Dean's hands and thumps it on top of the cards, pushing it farther back into the shelf than before. "We should go now."

"I thought you wanted to take that?" Dean places his hand on the book. Sam's fingertips still linger over the bottom corner of its cover, toying with a frayed edge.

"No. Maybe you're right." Sam slides his fingers along the lip of the cover, circles Dean's wrist tentatively, lifts his hand from the book.

Dean looks down at his own hand, Sam's fingers wrapped beneath it like he's taking Dean's pulse. "Bobby'd like it," he says, looking at Sam, who's not meeting his eyes again, hair in his face again, shadows beneath that.

"It's not right," Sam says, and drops Dean's hand.

Something isn't. Dean can tell it in Sam's voice, can feel it in the way the words linger in the air like a taste, like something he can taste in his own mouth. He cups Sam's jaw, lifting him so he can look Sam in the face. "What, Sammy, what?" He searches Sam's eyes, looking for something to read, something that will tell him what Sam won't, something more than the heavy slant of lids and the dark weight that sits in there like the wet ashes from a cold fire. He raises Sam's chin a little more, tilting his head to catch the light. A glint illuminates the hazel in his eyes before Sam closes them. He leans into Dean's hand, lightly at first then heavier like he's holding himself up entirely on Dean's palm. "It's okay," Dean says. "I got you." And Sam shifts, like a key turning in a lock, a crick in his neck clicking as he presses his mouth and nose into Dean's hand. Hot breath moistens the skin on Dean's palm. Dean feels Sam's lips move, a whisper or a prayer or a kiss.

He thinks of putting Sam to bed, tucking him in tight, and kissing his forehead only when Sam was too tired to complain. He thinks of nights spent waiting for Sam to fall asleep first, to make sure he's okay before allowing himself to follow suit. He thinks of waking to a dark room, Sam breathing too heavy for sleep. Like last night, and the night before. Too early showers, touching himself to take away the ache. Not clearing the steam away from the mirror to look at himself afterward.

Years spent in motel rooms, all the same. But not the same anymore.

Dean wants to say Sam's name, but he can't. It sounds like a warning in his mind, but sinks down on his tongue like a plea. He keeps his mouth closed and breaths through his nose.

Sam is mouthing his palm, his bottom lip wet and trembling slightly as it slides over the swell of Dean's bottom knuckle, moving over to Dean's thumb, brushing the pad of it. He does it again, or Dean thinks he does, until he realizes he's stroking Sam's lip, pushing inside a little and pulling down the center. It's chapped and catches on Dean's skin, scratches. He drags his thumb over the dry break of skin again and Sam pulls him in, draws his thumb into his mouth until Dean can feel the tip of Sam's tongue. Dean chokes back a moan and pulls his hand away, out, reflexively wiping at his own lips as if they're the ones wet with spit, not Sam's.

He wants to say no, he's supposed to say no. His hand pushes out and his fist curls around a swath of Sam's t-shirt to stop him, to stop himself, to shove away, whatever works. It doesn't. His other hand twines around some fabric next to the first and tugs Sam forward, down, until he's breathing in the same air as Sam, Sam's shallow breaths puffing against his own lips. It's not a kiss, not yet, just shared air, until Sam moves a fraction, pushes his lips against Dean's so hard that their heads tilt upward. Sam's nose shoves up under Dean's, slides to the left, and his lips start moving, opening around Dean's, shutting and pressing between them and opening again, opening him up. Dean's tongue lolls out and traces Sam's lip until he finds the chapped skin again, probes it, back and forth, until Sam's whining in the back of his throat. His hands move from his sides and clutch at Dean's waist, fingers threading through the belt loops at the top of Dean's jeans and grabbing hold. He bites lightly at Dean's upper lip, rolls it between his two. His hips roll too, forward into Dean's and Dean can feel him, hard line of Sam's cock rubbing up into his own. He groans as Sam tangles their tongues together.

Palms sweaty against the cotton of Sam's shirt, Dean slides them down Sam's chest, feeling the muscles he didn't know were there, doesn't remember being there a year or two before. The thought creeps in fast enough to spin his head around, make him second guess himself, and he backs off an inch, his lips twisting from Sam's with a wet sound. He opens his eyes, not knowing when he closed them, how long it's been. Blinking against the glare of lamplight, he looks around the room at the books and vials and jars. Doesn’t look at Sam.

"Dean." Sam says his name like it's little more than a breath, all vowels and a ghosting of consonants. His thumbs stroke slow circles at Dean's waist, pushing beneath his shirt and dipping into the hollow spaces where his hips begin. Dean's eyes fall closed. It's easier than looking, keeps him from thinking, from assessing his surroundings. It's not safe, he thinks vaguely, before he hears the floor creak and feels heat below him.

He opens his eyes. Sam's hands are still at his waist, Sam's head resting against one hand and his mouth open, breathing hot, moist air over Dean's crotch. He's looking at Dean with those hazel eyes raised up like a question, or rolled up like an answer.

"Let me," Sam says simply.

Dean doesn't have words for this. Sam's mouth settles over the fly of his jeans, opening wide around the length of Dean's cock beneath it. He can feel the teeth of his zipper cutting through the fabric of his underpants into his skin, can feel the hot and the wet of Sam's mouth soothing the bite, drawing out an ache that seems to come up from the floor and settle in the pit of his stomach. Sam's tongue pushes into the denim near his balls and Dean swallows hard, cranes his neck back as if to gulp the air. When he looks down again, Sam's slipping the loop over the button at his waist, pushing his hand inside so that his fingers brush the head of Dean's cock through his boxer briefs. Dean hisses. Sam guides the zipper down slowly, his hand sliding behind the metal teeth, following it down, knuckles stuttering over Dean with each pull, so slowly Dean's sure he's going to come before his fly's even open. When it is, Sam tugs at the bottom of the V until Dean's jeans shuffle down his hips, gathering just below his thighs. Sam’s fingers slide up Dean's legs, rustling through the short, golden hairs, up and up to the bottom hem of his underwear, pushing up under the black cotton, up until his hands lay flat beneath the fabric and his thumbs rest in the creases of his pelvis. He takes a breath and engulfs Dean with the whole of his mouth, tongue swiping upward, trailing spit and heat along one side of Dean's cock, then the other. With the tip of his tongue, he parts the slit in Dean's boxer briefs and finds the head of Dean's cock, flicking along the ridge of it. Sam's thumbs are rubbing closer to the base of Dean's cock, to the tops of his tightening balls, each time he moves his tongue. Dean's thighs begin to shake a little, like he's been standing here for years.

The heat is gone, the hands, the wetness. Dean's eyelids stick a little as he tries to open them. But then Sam's hand is there, on the back of his thigh, solid and heavy. His other hand pulls at Dean's underwear, down on one side, then the other, and again, the messy slipping of damp cotton followed by the harsh scratch of dry cotton over his cock, until they're just below Dean's balls. Dean's cock is flushed red, straining toward his belly, curving a little to one side. Through too-heavy lids, he tries to watch as Sam touches him: a light stroke of one finger along a thick vein, two fingers over the arc of his sac, the backs of his knuckles rolling up through the coarse hairs, up to his navel, the pads of his fingers stroking back down again. Sam closes his hand tight around the base of Dean's cock and pulls upward and Dean can't keep his eyes open. Sam's skin is thick with heat, heavy on him, fisted so tight Dean can feel himself throb into Sam's palm. He pulls Dean quickly, quicker and quicker in a rhythm that sounds so familiar. Sounds like sleepless nights. Sounds like the quiet noise of starched sheets and rusted springs and the quieter noise of Sam beneath it.

Sam beneath him now, pulling and panting and pressing into Dean's skin.

Dean's breath comes out ragged, breaking Sam's name into syllables. He can't get his tongue around the letters, can't remember where they go. Sam doesn't give him a chance, relentlessly jerking him until he's coming without a proper warning, coming all over Sam's hand and wrist. And Sam keeps going, wringing him dry, gripping the back of his leg as if he's all that's holding Dean upright.

He is. Dean feels deboned. It's probably as accurate a description as there could ever be, and if he had his head on straight, he'd probably have a good chuckle over the choice of words. But he leans into Sam's hand as if he's a rickety structure and Sam's the last post keeping him standing. He's winded, but starting to feel the air come back into his lungs, sinking deeper, and he can open his eyes a little if he really tries. When he does, he looks at Sam, catches his eyes as Sam opens his mouth over the head of Dean's cock still in his hand. He watches Sam lick the come from him and moans. Sam's lips and tongue are gentle on his skin, featherlight, but Dean's stomach still flutters at the sensation. Dean sucks in a breath and sucks in his bottom lip, gnawing lightly, as he watches Sam's mouth slide off him and move to his own hand. Sam cleans the come from his fingers, sucks at the web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, laps up the trickle cooling on his wrist. His tongue swipes along his lower lip, twirling at the corner of his mouth. It's ridiculous watching his brother do this. It's something strange. But it doesn't feel like it.

Dean bends, coaxes Sam's hand away from his thigh, and pulls up his underwear and jeans together. Sam watches him tuck himself back in, watches the elastic slip snugly around his waist, watches the teeth close along the zipper. He watches Dean like he's cataloging everything.

From here, Sam looks so small. Dean kneels down, cursing the splintery floorboards, to face him. "Sam," he says. And Sam kisses him, quick then slow, barely opening his mouth, just letting Dean's lips pull at his own. Dean reaches between them, touches Sam's stomach, lets his hand fall lower and Sam pulls back, his lips pursed tight, his gaze slanting to the side. Dean's fingers brush over the seam in Sam's jeans. It's damp. He bites back a grin, but all the same wishes he knew when. All the same, he wishes he could've seen him come. He moves to take his hand away, and Sam's hand closes over him.

"Please, Dean." He bows his head slightly and looks at Dean through the tangle of his bangs. "Touch me anyway." He guides Dean's hand to unfasten him, but there's a creak on the floor that's not from them and a tapping sound. And Dean is up on his feet, hand finding his gun without even looking for it.

A long staff of wood comes tapping around the corner. Then patent leather shoes. Long legs. An old man in a black suit, cradling a top hat in one arm. He raps his cane against the nearest shelf.

"Carnival's closed, boys."

The smile on his lips is tight, forced. But Dean recognizes the hollowed cheeks, gray skin sagging into lengths of shadow.

Dean pulls Sam up without breaking his gaze from the man. "Come on, Sammy. Let's go home."

"Good idea," the man says, knitting his brows into a smile at the wrong end of his face, moving into the spot where Sam and Dean were just standing as they walk backwards down the aisle. Dean's hand curls around his gun, against the small of his back, hidden but ready. On guard again. He forgot about this place's impeccable timing, about the eyes that seem to be on him at all times. Only Sam makes him forget. But that's okay, they're putting this place behind them now.

Dean trips as they round the corner and bumps something on the shelf. Sam catches it, eases it back into its place, and Dean notices it's the pigboy fetus. But its hoove-hands are no longer crossed. Jarring it must have dislodged them, and now one floats in the piss-yellow liquid, seeming to wave at them. And that's just wrong. Even for here.

Out the door — the creaking door, the creaking stoop with its creaking step — and it's still bright with carnival lights outside. But no one's around except some janitors sweeping trash and dry dirt into their dustbins. Passing the main tent, the flaps are closed and the barker gone. The canvas ripples as they walk by, but Dean feels no breeze, doesn't think they're walking fast enough to stir it. But that can be corrected. He grips Sam by the elbow and hurries them away from this freakshow. Just let it go. Dad's wrong about this one; there's nothing here to hunt, nothing here to kill. If there is, he can find it himself in the morning. Dean's not losing Sam again.

They walk out of the midway and it into the dark and don't look back.

**Author's Note:**

> • Beta: raynemaiden.
> 
> • Inspired by:  
> \- BPAL's listing for [Carnaval Diabolique](http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/cdiabolique.html), which follows their previous line of carnivalesque scents, Carnaval Noir, hence the title.  
> \- Mark Lanegan's "Caranival."  
> \- And probably the HBO series _Carnivàle_ , indirectly.
> 
> • Wunderkammer is a [cabinet of curiosities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_curiosities) (not exclusive to carnivals).
> 
> • The Tarot cards and their keywords:  
> \- Ten of Cups = joy, peace, family  
> \- Ace of Cups = emotional force, intuition, intimacy, love  
> \- The Hanged Man = letting go, reversal, suspension, sacrifice  
> \- In a 3-card spread, the first card drawn represents the past, the second the present, the third the future. For more information, see [this page linking to the meanings and images of the cards](http://www.learntarot.com/cards.htm) or [Wikipedia’s entry on Tarot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot).
> 
> • [The Grimoire Of Honorius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire_of_Honorius)—possibly being the book that Sam finds in the Wunderkammer.


End file.
